Press Play ▶️ An Interview with Lisa Alexander
I am a slow burn. I don’t do anything quickly (except maybe spend money and eat cheese 🧀)
This interview is part of the Press Play series, which digs deep into the WHY behind a Long Pause and what creativity looks like on the other side. The goal is to say the quiet part loud: Pauses happen; you’re not alone! If you know a creator who has weathered a Long Pause (maybe it’s you!), reply to this e-mail and tell me about it! Subscribe below so you never miss an interview! 👊
Today’s interview is with poet Lisa Alexander, author of the magnificent throttlebody, whose creative practice makes room for Pauses as a natural part of the process. Oh, and there are cats involved 😻
Explain yourself. Who are you, how do you identify as an artist / creative?
Most straightforwardly, I am a poet. My first full-length collection, throttlebody, came out in 2024, and I’m still trying to get used to the idea that it’s out in the world and doing things on its own. I’m also an adjunct instructor in the Department of Art, Communication, and English at Carlow University, and the Operations Director for Calliope: The Pittsburgh Folk Music Society, so I’m always running in two lanes: writing and music.
You’re here because you’ve gone through a fallow period where you didn’t produce much work. How did your Long Pause come about? How long did it last? OR are you still in it?
For me, one of the key things to understanding my Long Pause is realizing/recognizing that I’m having one. I’m an ebb-and-flow kind of writer. Although I try to sit at my desk to write a little and read a lot first thing each morning (or vice versa), I do not pressure myself to do this. If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. This does, however, impede my ability to gauge when a pause has become complete inaction. Where is that line? And how much (or for how long) does complete inaction matter? I don’t know the answer to that.
For the longest time, my work was supported by multiple workshops, either through grad school or through the Madwomen writing workshops in Pittsburgh (both formally and informally), so I was always working to get drafts in workshoppable shape. These methods helped me produce and support the poems that made it into my book. I consider the poems that I’ve written that didn’t go into throttlebody to be support poems. They aren’t in the book, but they are along the path of the production, which, to me, is as important as the ones that made it to print.
Generating new work while throttlebody was in the production phase was nearly impossible. It was like musical chairs in my head, and I couldn’t find a place to sit. I spent almost 18 years writing the poems in that book, so once it was all underway, I found myself in the strangest position: I didn’t know where to go next. All the drafts I’d been writing for years were under consideration for “the book,” but now the book was complete. In some ways, this open space was/is exhilarating, and in some ways, it has left me questioning what else I have in me to put on a page.
As of today, this is where I am. I am a slow burn. I don’t do anything quickly (except maybe spend money and eat cheese). My work life is also far busier than it’s ever been, and I have less and less time (i.e., mental space) to tend to the rest of my life.
Define creativity– what do you feel are the necessary elements of creative work, or a creative life? How has this definition grown or changed as you moved through a Long Pause?
I am an only child, and even though I have many cousins and grew up in a neighborhood with plenty of kids around, I still spent a considerable amount of time alone in my head or hanging out with adults, which presents its own kind of individuality. I typically had one foot in what was going on around me and another in a completely made-up land. Always with a prop in my pocket to support my secret agent endeavors (a homemade badge or broken radio part from my father), or perhaps another kind of toy to support the narrative of whoever else I was pretending to be, I never felt the need to be fully present in the world outside my head. My “other agenda” turned mundane tasks into exciting adventures while I went shopping with my mom or ran errands with my dad. These experiences staked an early interest in looking and considering what was around me to be useful for my play/imagination. I still do this to this day. I may not (always) be running another narrative alongside my day-to-day existence, but I’m still taking stock of what’s around me, sometimes with no agenda, and sometimes because I’m building a poetry stockpile.
I used to think that creativity was some spattered smock (I mean this both metaphorically and literally) and a rejection of anything pedestrian. But I was young when I thought that. I realize now that while creativity for me is the rustled edge of a tablecloth, it is also the glare of the TV burning deep into the night. It’s both the moments that are, and the moments that are not, so to speak.
The Long Pauses that I have taken - recently, in the past, and most certainly in the future - need to be free of the pressure to snap out of them because that only creates more tension, which distorts the process. I once had someone tell me that when I felt a panic attack coming on, I should acknowledge that it’s happening and not fight it because the fighting makes it worse. This is true. I apply this same philosophy to writing. Sometimes I’m better off doing something else for a while. Writing always comes back. It has been returning to me since I was a kid, writing stories in my notebook with the ice cream sundae on the cover (and “Top Secret! Keep Out!” written all over it). It returned to me when I tried to run away from it as I got older, because there was too much baggage attached, and fear and hurt accompanied too much of what came to the page. I’m also terrible at the business side of it, and I don’t use social media. Despite the pressure, those things are not the writing, and they don’t have to be a part of it at all. I essentially need all of my faculties to go towards generating and working with poems, especially when I’m in a pause. The whole point is the poem, even when getting there takes more time than I’d like to think.
Were there positives that came out of your Long Pause? What did you learn or come to terms with while you were blocked?
There are definitely positives to being in a Long Pause. The first thing that comes to mind is that a pause provides recalibration time even when it isn’t asked for or planned. The mechanics of existence take over, and things click into place wherever they click. I think that’s just a natural part of existing, and we have to have time to do it.
Also, I get to be a looky-loo for a while. This ties into generating my poetry stockpile. If I have the capacity, I like actively observing and taking notes (mental or otherwise) on what I see. I still sometimes pretend to be a secret agent looking for hidden marks/magic within the days unfolding. I like it best when something appears totally regular, but it’s not.
If I get the opportunity to be thoughtful while I’m having a pause, I spend time in the in-between space simply considering. What will happen next? Will I never write anything I feel good about again? Or is there something that will really hit the nail on the head just around the corner? The landscape of possibility is entirely fertile ground, and although I don’t much like surprises, I’m really into potential.
I should say I’m not always able to have control over what my pauses look like. Sometimes they come about because work and responsibilities have infiltrated my time and have shoved me into a corner so small, all I can do at the end of the day is try to disconnect with the TV before sleep. Is there anything positive about that? Well, paychecks, I guess, and I’m grateful that I have jobs that I find fulfilling. It’s not an ideal situation, though, and I’m much better off when I manage to arrange my time in a way where I have some control or choice about some hour of the day at least.
Did you engage with other creative practices while you were blocked from your primary mode of expression during a Long Pause? What did you do? What did you learn?
I always have a handful of other creative practices that I do in a half-assed way. I like to draw. I have no formal skills, but I really enjoy a pen on a page even when I’m not making words. I actually like to doodle while I’m at readings because sometimes it helps me track the content better. The act of marking up a page really soothes my mind. I’m also partial to drawing cats because I’m partial to cats.
Although I’m not a musician, I like to tool around on the guitar and keyboard (or piano when I’m at my mom’s house where my piano lives). I like the tangible feeling of an instrument in my hands and the sounds it can make, even though I’m not good at it.
I’m not sure that reading is considered a creative practice, but I do read a lot when I’m on pause: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, all of it, even MAD Magazine. For me, it goes hand-in-hand with writing. The brain needs things to eat, so that there are things to say and ways to say them. Reading is the most effective way to help me get back to my own page. Plus, it just feels good.
How did you feel while you were in your Long Pause? What helped you? What didn’t?
It’s hard to parse out my own feelings about my pauses alongside what I hear about how I should feel while having a long pause. I know it’s often cause for concern. Some people say they have a set habit that produces continuously flowing words, like writing machines, so good at taking care of the business side, and all that, and that’s great. But that’s not how I work, and I can’t feel bad that I don’t. Writing accompanies my existence. It helps me make sense of it, praise it, challenge it, or fuck around with it to see what else there is to see. But I write when I write. I don’t when I don’t. It’s as simple as that.
The hardest part is when I’m right there with the urge, all ready to go, but nothing comes. That’s when I feel the most frustrated. But if I’m at the page, I can always put something on it, so I’ll babble until I tire of it. Occasionally, something good will come out of it; sometimes not. I try to allow myself to lean into little fascinations that may lead down rabbit holes about something weird that I can explore in writing. Sometimes I’ll revisit old journal entries that truly sound like someone else wrote them. Often, I can find something to run with in there that now looks different to me. The most important thing to do is just listen with the eyes. The wind will pick up again at some point.
Eventually, I’ll die, and what I’ve written will be seen or not seen until it all becomes invisible within the universal haze of the past, so the truest point for me is in the doing, in the act of investigating and crafting a poem. That excavation is the whole point for me. It’s the momentum and discovery that gets the strand of lights around my garage of thoughts to come on in the dark, and even when long periods of time go by between those endeavors, I usually get there one way or another.
Lisa Alexander's full-length book throttlebody was released from Get Fresh Books in 2024. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in various journals, including Tupelo Quarterly, 2 Bridges Review, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, and The Burnside Review, among others. She holds an MFA in poetry from Drew University and is a longtime member of the Madwomen in the Attic writing workshops. She was a sound engineer for Prosody, the long-running radio show and podcast that features the work of national writers, for many years.
Find Lisa here:
Instagram: @threeeven | Website